The Night Mail

[PhilJ W]

Why hippos and tapirs should not be kept together.

[figworthy]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Not being either a grandparent (or parent for that matter) I’m not entirely up to date with the latest trends in child-rearing, but isn’t hot gluing grandchildren to polystyrene blocks a wee bit drastic?
 

My grandparents found stout rope and a gag more than adequate for keeping me quiet…

 

Some years back, a colleague and I came up with a brilliant idea for holiday child care.  Kennels for kids (it seems to work for our four legged friends).  Discussing it amongst those with kids, the reception was to say the least, disappointing.

 

Adrian

[jamie92208]

57 minutes ago, figworthy said:

 

Some years back, a colleague and I came up with a brilliant idea for holiday child care.  Kennels for kids (it seems to work for our four legged friends).  Discussing it amongst those with kids, the reception was to say the least, disappointing.

 

Adrian

I used to put adults into rather large kennels and get paid for it. With somebof them I quite enjoyed shutting the house door on them.  I also put a found sheep in a dog kennel once.

 

Jamie

[SM42]

I think they should have a facility at supermarkets for you to hang your children up by the door for collection on the way out

You should be able to  vacuum pack them for freshness

 

Andy

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening all,

 

Some of the downtime on Christmas Day was spent making a new chimney for the engine from the “soft cheese” brass I have been gifted. I think it came out pretty nice, and looks much better than the wooden prop. 
 

I thinks it’s safe to I am improving at the lathe, albeit slowly. 
 

I also managed to make new salter springs with ornamental heads, along with an ornamental cap for the done. The steam pipes which formerly were very noticeable have now been permanently removed as they no longer had a purpose since I decided to daycare the outside valve gear plan. I think the look has improved a bit.

 

These photos came from my Instagram and have indeed been sent through a filter.

 

 

 

Today was an interesting day indeed.

 

We acquired a dog for about 4 hours. A stray with no collar. So he was put in the dog run for several hours with my sister to keep him company. Owner wa around after chop scanning.

 

I would have stayed out as well however the grandmother had agreed to take me to this antique store-vintage ironwork-used car yard thing which I wanted to have a look around.

 

It was a very interesting place and the highlight of the trip was the finding of a 3.5 inch gauge LMS Jubilee or Black 5 built in very a humble workshop in the style of Meccano but with very nice cast wheels, probably from Bonds. It was named “King George the Fifth” though. Whoever built it (the engine came from Liverpool apparently) must have been in a rush as the cab is a box and it has a bunker rather than a Stanier tender. The bogie also was not functional and riveted to the frames.

 

It would have brought about $170 on eBay however the chap wanted $3000 cash for it!

 

Aghast I was left to stand to look at the hapless thing, which really I suppose would really only be good for parts. Although if you add a proper bogie and cab I think it would have come out rather nice. The motion was also wrecked though but showed signs of having been made well. I’m pretty sure it was an electric engine, unless the exterior is covering a giant smithies boiler. 
 

Here’s a rubbish pic.

 

 

Someone put a lot of time into it though! 
 

I thought about haggling with the gent a bit but he’s an old guy and sounded like he was from down  yon ‘bayou so I knew it would be tough as half my family is from there. I may go back at some time though and explain its value. I think he would be receptive. He was to my explaining the wheels and incorrect name and what it actually was. Or maybe he was just stunned that a random 16 year old had wandered into his shop and was explains a steam engine.

 

What a find for Oklahoma though. It will have taps kept on it so to speak.

 

Douglas

Edited December 28, 2021 by Florence Locomotive Works

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

The pub would be good for starters - providing it stocked Penderyn of course.

 

In 7mm

OK

 

I’m thinking: small, West -Country-ish, Scottish landlord, dedicated Whisky room… “The Sporran and Caber” as a name perhaps? 

 

Of course, the dedicated Whisky room would have 7mm bottles of Penderyn, Glenfiddich, Glen Farclas etc. It goes without saying that for verisimilitude the bottles would have to contain a wee drop of the real stuff. Fortunately, I’ve found a supply of suitably age appropriate whiskies: https://www.whiskyshop.com/scotch-whisky/rare-collectable-whiskies?product_list_order=price_desc&item_availability=In+Stock which will be tapped for the pub’s stock of (quite literally) miniatures.

It’ll cost a few pennies, but quality modelling can’t be done “on the cheap” and it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 So he was put in the dog run for several hours with my sister to keep him company. 

Sounds like you've got a solution as what to do with children/siblings etc  that SM42 was proposing.

Didn't she object.

 

Jamie

 

[SM42]

 

 

4 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 

We acquired a dog for about 4 hours. A stray with no collar. So he was put in the dog run for several hours with my sister to keep him company.

 

Have you let your sister out yet?

 

Andy

[Winslow Boy]

28 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

 

 

Have you let your sister out yet?

 

Andy

 

Now where would the fun be in that.

 

As an only child I've often wondered what it would be like to have a younger sibling to torment.

[rockershovel]

Just a moment of pure nostalgia....

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

OK

 

I’m thinking: small, West -Country-ish, Scottish landlord, dedicated Whisky room… “The Sporran and Caber” as a name perhaps? 

 

Of course, the dedicated Whisky room would have 7mm bottles of Penderyn, Glenfiddich, Glen Farclas etc. It goes without saying that for verisimilitude the bottles would have to contain a wee drop of the real stuff. Fortunately, I’ve found a supply of suitably age appropriate whiskies: https://www.whiskyshop.com/scotch-whisky/rare-collectable-whiskies?product_list_order=price_desc&item_availability=In+Stock which will be tapped for the pub’s stock of (quite literally) miniatures.

It’ll cost a few pennies, but quality modelling can’t be done “on the cheap” and it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!

I've thought about this long and hard, and I'm not sure that this is going to work out in 7 mm scale.

 

I'd be much happier if we worked on a scale where a 35cl bottle  was representing a  real life 70 cl bottle.

 

Brian (br2975) has always fancied this as a modelling location.

 

 

Travellers Rest Crossing twixt Parkend and Coleford Junction.

 

I'd suggest that Dave and I accept ID's offer but in the larger scale suggested, and  then sit in the whisky room whilst future generations build our railway to match.

[rockershovel]

35 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Now where would the fun be in that.

 

As an only child I've often wondered what it would be like to have a younger sibling to torment.

Speaking as the second of three siblings, the odd thing was that having the younger one to torment didn't balance being tormented by the older one...

[rockershovel]

7 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I've thought about this long and hard, and I'm not sure that this is going to work out in 7 mm scale.

 

I'd be much happier if we worked on a scale where a 35cl bottle  was representing a  real life 70 cl bottle.

 

Brian (br2975) has always fancied this as a modelling location.

 

 

Travellers Rest Crossing twixt Parkend and Coleford Junction.

 

I'd suggest that Dave and I accept ID's offer but in the larger scale suggested, and  then sit in the whisky room whilst future generations build our railway to match.

More years ago than enough, I found an unopened airline miniature of gin in my pocket after a job. I put it in the hand of one of the dolls in my wife's cupboard... I've just looked and it's still there....

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Speaking as the second of three siblings, the odd thing was that having the younger one to torment didn't balance being tormented by the older one...

Torment often works the other way.

 

My little brother came to my passing out parade at Catterick in 1975.

 

After the parade, this four year old, nicknamed by a friend 'Hell on two legs', managed to acquire a Sterling SMG from the Small Arms Display, had it been loaded I might have been in for some quite rapid promotion!  It was returned pdq.

 

As we were leaving camp, he decided that using the ornamental chains on the Guardroom verandah was a good idea.

 

The Provost corporal was most kind and reserved and merely smiled at my brother and then me.

 

He wasn't smiling on the Monday morning when I returned to camp....

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Just a moment of pure nostalgia....

I once won two walkmen, without young ladies attached, in a competition.  You needed to say how mamny C90's worth of tape would be needed to stretch from the southernmost tip of England to the northernmost tip of Scotland.  Half an hour with OS maps and a calculator provided the answer.  Two Walkmen appeared  one for us and one for the dragon in law.  Good pieces of kit.

 

As to siblings, my brother (4 years older) stopped tormenting me when I got to be taller than him.

 

Tom Lehrer, as usual summed things up quite well.

 

"A pestering sister's a festering blister"

 

Jamie

Edited December 28, 2021 by jamie92208

[bbishop]

My little sister started to boss me at the age of four.  She is still bossing me (and everybody else) 64 years later.

 

Bill

[rockershovel]

 

On 10/12/2020 at 10:11, rockershovel said:

 

I briefly encountered Pop Warner football during a period in the care of relatives in the USA, and subsequently played for Cambridge County Cats during the vogue the sport enjoyed in the U.K. in the mid-80s. I enjoyed it hugely but rugby remains my “first love”. 

 

 Speaking of County Cats, I needed a new avatar image and was sent this in the course of another correspondence with one of those long-lost acquaintances cast up by the interweb. 

 

 

It's a press photo, taken v Northampton Storm at the original Saints ground. It's probably early in the 3rd quarter - at least three players appear who weren't starters  and the numbers are a bit out of sequence, but #12 was our starting QB at that time. 

 

Looks like some sort of weak side run, probably 31 Dive with an option to pass to split end for a short gain. I'm out of position at strong side tackle (#61 with knee brace) and #56 was a linebacker # so probably some sort of asymmetric lineup. 

 

Northants strong side linebacker seems to have worked it out, but is too far out of position... Defensive end clearly knows the Cambridge tight end (#88) isn't coming into contact! 

 

It's all very vivid after what, 35 years? Certainly kept a bunch of old codgers in animated discussion for almost half an hour... 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by rockershovel

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

…As an only child I've often wondered what it would be like to have a younger sibling to torment.

Not At All Fun

I’m the oldest and I can attest from bitter experience that the oldest child is never the most loved, never mother or father’s favourite. Which means, in practical terms, that when things really go pear-shaped you always end up - in familial terms - like Wil E Coyote with a fizzing stick of dynamite in his hand as the perpetrator gets off scot free..

The most bent copper ever in the history of bent coppers fitting up an innocent bystander is a do-it-by-the-book Saint compared to my sister….

Only child? I dreamt of being an only child!

 

I would have sold all three siblings to be an only child!

Happy Families? My a**e!

Edited December 28, 2021 by iL Dottore

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Just a moment of pure nostalgia....

Ah yes, lissome young ladies in satin hot-pants on roller skates… 

 

The joys of a misspent youth in the 1970s….

The 70s weren’t all flock wallpaper, avocado bathroom suites and polyester flares y’know. There was a lot of glamour to go with the glam-rock back then…

[br2975]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

My little brother came to my passing out parade at Catterick in 1975.....................................managed to acquire a Sterling SMG from the Small Arms Display,

Seems he never shook off that link with firearms.

[jamie92208]

On 28/12/2021 at 14:41, iL Dottore said:

Ah yes, lissome young ladies in satin hot-pants on roller skates… 

 

The joys of a misspent youth in the 1970s….

The 70s weren’t all flock wallpaper, avocado bathroom suites and polyester flares y’know. There was a lot of glamour to go with the glam-rock back then…

Cliff Richard even released an album in praise of the Walkman,  Wired for Sound. I believe that there's a copy in the record cabinet as Beth is a devotee of the living dead. His calendar, that our daughter gives her every year, is in the closet in the kitchen.   I better not make any more comments.

 

Anyway, mention has been made of the muck lamented Old Cannery in Vancouver.  We were taken there by my old aunts in 1979 and Beth and I took the remaining one back there in 2004.   To get to it you had to negotiate a railway yard (CP I think), bump over the tracks and pull up behind what looked like a run down timber building.  The front, which faced west though, looked like this.

All the tables had the view of the sunset down the bay.

The food was as good as the setting.  I believe that the area has now been gentrified or something and it got closed down.

 

Jamie

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by jamie92208

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Torment often works the other way.

 

My little brother came to my passing out parade at Catterick in 1975.

 

After the parade, this four year old, nicknamed by a friend 'Hell on two legs', managed to acquire a Sterling SMG from the Small Arms Display, had it been loaded I might have been in for some quite rapid promotion!  It was returned pdq.

 

As we were leaving camp, he decided that using the ornamental chains on the Guardroom verandah was a good idea.

 

The Provost corporal was most kind and reserved and merely smiled at my brother and then me.

 

He wasn't smiling on the Monday morning when I returned to camp....

 

Well you know what they say " revenge comes to those who wait" and just think what character forming the whole episode was. So really younger brother was actually doing you a service. Have you thanked him for it.

[rockershovel]

29 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Ah yes, lissome young ladies in satin hot-pants on roller skates… 

 

The joys of a misspent youth in the 1970s….

The 70s weren’t all flock wallpaper, avocado bathroom suites and polyester flares y’know. There was a lot of glamour to go with the glam-rock back then…

I don't know why you would regard any part of such activities, as "mis-spent". I certainly don't. 

[Happy Hippo]

12 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

 Have you thanked him for it?

At every possible opportunity!

[rockershovel]

Just seen Michael Portillo on tv and he didn't disappoint.. a red/yellow sort-of-tartan jacket with an overall pixilated effect of small coloured squares.

 

Where DOES he get them? ... and he carries them off with such effortless aplomb.

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by rockershovel